Pastor's Blog

Welcome to my Blog!

This blog doesn’t have a theme, but includes spiritual and Biblical reflections about people, Bible passages, and often topics of race and culture and the Kingdom of God, since I am called to such work.

The blog does have a dedicatory first entry. This blog is dedicated to Kianna, once a young girl I met while serving as a pastor in Michigan, and now wherever God, she herself, and life may have taken her.

If you'd like to communicate with questions or comments, please do so through the regular church contact information on this website.  I'd be happy to talk with you.

Paz, Pastor Dan

For Kianna

September 24, 2017

Kianna was in third grade.  She, her younger brother Cam, and I were spending the summer running around the church parking lot in Jesus’ name (a “blacktop” neighborhood ministry).   On some thickly hot days, we found refuge in my air-conditioned church office, which was also a refreshing place to talk about God. “What is baptism? …

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(Which Decline? Which Church? Whose America?)

January 16, 2020

            So much is written in the church circles I inhabit about the decline of the Church in North America.  In particular, the church blog-o-verse, catalog of conferences, and advertised books seem regularly to be offering advice about how to get The Youth back in church.             But I am convinced that much of the…

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Language and Privilege

December 5, 2019

I’d heard it before, so this was only the most recent occasion.             “It’s rude to speak in a language everyone doesn’t share when you could instead use a shared language, because you’re excluding people.  They might think you’re talking about them, or you might actually be doing so.”             The statement drew a relatively…

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Mirroring Need

October 29, 2019

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet He did not sin.  Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find…

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Multiculturalism, Bible-style

September 26, 2019

“But hasn’t multi-culturalism failed?” – Church leader, in my office, after a tense meeting             I had been pushing to make “multi-cultural” a formally-stated value of our congregation, but I had overlooked a critical flaw, right up until I stepped in it.             “Multi-culturalism” sounded like a suspiciously-leftist agenda piece to certain of my congregants. …

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“Avengers: Endgame” is a tragedy

August 29, 2019

A casual conversation between Iron Man and Dr. Stephen Strange, time traveler: “I went forward into the future… to see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict.” “How many did you see?” “14,000,605.” “How many do we win?” “One.”             So a few weekends back, I finally caught up to one piece of pop…

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A Scholar and A Sovereign

August 5, 2019

WARNING: This blog post contains more science and philosophy than I understand. I wrote it anyway.  Maybe you’ll even read it anyway. On a recent night, I finished reading a reflective book called The Great Unknown: Seven Journeys to the Frontiers of Science by Marcus Du Sautoy, Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at…

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When Our Faith Shall Be Sight

July 3, 2019

Sometimes you lose sight of why you chose the principles you did.             Back when our first daughter was born, my wife and I discussed the possibility that I would speak to her in Spanish for, say, six months.  The trouble was that six months is long enough to establish a firm habit, and in…

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Waiting for the ‘but’

May 29, 2019

I regularly enjoy the webcomic “XKCD.”  (I take no responsibility for you looking that up, nor for your resultant mirth, confusion, or offense.)  Here is comic #2146, “Waiting for the but…”             All of XKCD’s comics also come with a post-punchline punchline.  This one came with: “Listen, I’m not a fan of the Spanish Inquisition…

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The Foundation of the Church

April 29, 2019

My favorite genre of literature is science fiction, which wasn’t even considered literature when it started in the 19th century.  A few works, like those of Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and HG Wells, had to stand the test of time, and a few authors had to die first so that their objections to being classified…

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Will this blog post prosper?

March 19, 2019

My elders had granted me a Sunday off, so it was therefore a perfect day to go spy on experience other churches.  Maybe covet come back with a fresh idea or two. The first church we visited was large, not mega, but large, and had a reputation in the community for shady finances and concomitantly…

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